You know, because I’m grouchy, and because “Oscar” and “Grouch” go together, ha ha. Rules! Most importantly, the Grouches hold themselves to movies that it is not impossible to imagine the Oscars themselves might have given attention to. Ways in include production companies that the Oscars have awarded in the past, filmmakers the Oscars have… Read More 1st Annual Grouches: 2019 Movie Year Awards
Dir. Alexandre Aja. Starring Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Cso Cso You know what’s great? Crawl is great. There is a dog named Sugar (Cso Cso) who shows up very early in the movie. She gets close-ups and everything, so naturally one feels an immediate closeness to her. Sugar is also such a good name for a dog,… Read More Crawl (2019)
Dir. Lulu Wang. Starring Awkwafina, Zhao Shuzhen, Tzi Ma Dir. Jia Zhangke. Starring Zhao Tao, Liao Fan, Casper Liang There are a bunch of scenes where people eat in The Farewell, which is lowkey one of the hungriest movies in recent memory, but the image that stands out from all this eating is the laziest… Read More The Farewell (2019) and Ash Is Purest White (2018)
Dir. David Fincher. Starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Carrie Coon There must be some contingent of the viewing public that just likes to watch crazy women, and to plaster on the vaguest psychological terminology to explain away why they might do something lurid and shocking, like throw some red wine on their panties and then… Read More Gone Girl (2014)
Dir. Michael Curtiz. Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains Sometimes, when I feel just aggressively masochistic, I try to narrow down the best scene I’ve ever seen in a movie. This is a fool’s errand, and only fools rush in. On the other hand, I’ve seen Casablanca maybe a dozen times in my life, and I… Read More Casablanca (1943)
Dir. Daniel Mann. Starring Shirley Booth, Burt Lancaster, Terry Moore I’m not an alcoholic, and if there have been alcoholics in my life I couldn’t name them. I couldn’t say whether or not it’s likely that an alcoholic’s first bender in a year would end in him brandishing a knife at his wife, although one… Read More Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)
Every article has its roots in Twitter unless it’s plagiarized from Reddit, and I guess this one is no different. A few days ago Elijah Wood took to Twitter to express a sentiment that was common not just among fans of Uncut Gems, but fans of Uncut Gems in high places: “truly baffled that Sandler wasn’t nominated and Uncut… Read More What Makes an Oscar Movie
Dir. Sam Mendes. Starring George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Claire Duburcq The Allies won. There, I got the spoilers out of the way. With about forty-five minutes left in the movie, finally something happens that makes you say, “Ah, Deakins did this.” Schofield (MacKay) has just awoken. Where it was afternoon before now it is blue night. He… Read More 1917 (2019)
Dir. Bryan Singer and also unofficially Dexter Fletcher. Staring Rami Malek, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy Peter Sellers believed that he would have won an Oscar for Being There if only Hal Ashby hadn’t put outtakes in the credits. It broke the spell, according to Sellers. “Chauncey Gardiner” was on such a different planet that to remind… Read More Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Dir. Luc Dardenne and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. Starring Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione, Christelle Cornil Arguably the greatest moment in one of the greatest movies ever made, Three Colors: Blue, comes when Juliette Binoche sees the baby mice in her apartment and knows that she’s supposed to exterminate them. A woman grieving is given the responsibility to… Read More Two Days, One Night (2014)
Seeing Things Secondhand 